Filter Reviews

I love this lens. It is very fast and extremely sharp. However, after getting the lens I had to send it to Sigma in NJ for a software adjustment so that it would not freeze on my F100. Seems that after about three minutes of HSM focusing on F100s the Sigma lens freezes. It can be unfrozen by turning the power on the camera off and on, but that's a pain. Sigma repaired it very quickly and I now love it. I use a 1.4x Sigma converter with it and very much like the combination.

This lens is big and heavy, but very sturdy in feel and wonderfully bright. I feel it is a great alternative to the Nikon silent wave version with is almost twice as expensive.

I won't repeat what other reviewers have said but I do want to say that this is a wonderfully sharp, bright, and very well built lens.

When I bought the lens and mounted it on my Nikon F100 I found that the AF would lock after a minute or two of use. I phoned Sigma and they said to send it in for a reprogramming. They were very fast with turnaround and the lens now works perfectly. Newer models may be updated by now, but the trouble of sending it off was minimal.

The HSM is very fast and accurate, plus very quiet. I love this lens with my 1.4x and 2.0x Sigma teleconverters. In my opinion, a real bargain when it comes to well made fast zooms.

Having used the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 EX HSM lens for portrature and wildlife work in Costa Rica recently, I can highly recommend this lens. The lens is very strong and well built, extremely fast, silent, and sharp. There are times when the lens will hunt a little bit when focusing, but this is not enough of a problem to cause you to miss a shot or cause a problem. The ability to imediately manualy focus the lens without having to switch to manual focus is not only a great convenience, it is absolutely a necesity when photoghaphing wildlife in the jungle, or even through the brush or in a tree in your own backyard. If your camera should focus on the foreground clutter instead of the desired subject matter, all one has to do is to rotate the focusing ring to focus on the subject, and shoot. I have found this lens to be extremely sharp and acurate over the entire frame area. The F2.8 light gathering ability is excelent, alowing you to add the Sigma APO 2X EX teleconverter to have a fully auto 140-400 F5.6 lens as well for little more money. Using this combination as well I have noticed no decrease in sharpness of image quality, although focusing may be slightly slower. In continuous focus mode this combination still had no trouble keeping up with birds in flight, although a tripod would be highly recomended. A nice feature is the tripod mount which can be used to grip and hold the lens and camera while shooting, or in less than a second can be detatched from the lens if so prefered. The camera can also be rotated a full 360 degrees within the tripod mount instead of the stndard 90 degrees of most other brands of lenses. The lens comes complete with with end caps, a padded soft side storage case, and even a lens hood, specialy designed to eliminate vigneting- at no extra charge. Although normaly dedicated to Nikor lenses, after inspecting and using this lens I found it to be equal in quality and better designed (in my opnion) in some areas than the Nikor 80-200 F2.8 silent wave lens. It is also smaller and lighter than the Nikor lens, a big plus in all day use, in or out of the jungle. On top of everything else I was able to purchase the Sigma lens for...less than the Nikor lens. A great lens at a great price.

I love this lens. It is very fast and extremely sharp. However, after getting the lens I had to send it to Sigma in NJ for a software adjustment so that it would not freeze on my F100. Seems that after about three minutes of HSM focusing on F100s the Sigma lens freezes. It can be unfrozen by turning the power on the camera off and on, but that's a pain. Sigma repaired it very quickly and I now love it. I use a 1.4x Sigma converter with it and very much like the combination.

This lens is big and heavy, but very sturdy in feel and wonderfully bright. I feel it is a great alternative to the Nikon silent wave version with is almost twice as expensive.

I won't repeat what other reviewers have said but I do want to say that this is a wonderfully sharp, bright, and very well built lens.

When I bought the lens and mounted it on my Nikon F100 I found that the AF would lock after a minute or two of use. I phoned Sigma and they said to send it in for a reprogramming. They were very fast with turnaround and the lens now works perfectly. Newer models may be updated by now, but the trouble of sending it off was minimal.

The HSM is very fast and accurate, plus very quiet. I love this lens with my 1.4x and 2.0x Sigma teleconverters. In my opinion, a real bargain when it comes to well made fast zooms.

Having used the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 EX HSM lens for portrature and wildlife work in Costa Rica recently, I can highly recommend this lens. The lens is very strong and well built, extremely fast, silent, and sharp. There are times when the lens will hunt a little bit when focusing, but this is not enough of a problem to cause you to miss a shot or cause a problem. The ability to imediately manualy focus the lens without having to switch to manual focus is not only a great convenience, it is absolutely a necesity when photoghaphing wildlife in the jungle, or even through the brush or in a tree in your own backyard. If your camera should focus on the foreground clutter instead of the desired subject matter, all one has to do is to rotate the focusing ring to focus on the subject, and shoot. I have found this lens to be extremely sharp and acurate over the entire frame area. The F2.8 light gathering ability is excelent, alowing you to add the Sigma APO 2X EX teleconverter to have a fully auto 140-400 F5.6 lens as well for little more money. Using this combination as well I have noticed no decrease in sharpness of image quality, although focusing may be slightly slower. In continuous focus mode this combination still had no trouble keeping up with birds in flight, although a tripod would be highly recomended. A nice feature is the tripod mount which can be used to grip and hold the lens and camera while shooting, or in less than a second can be detatched from the lens if so prefered. The camera can also be rotated a full 360 degrees within the tripod mount instead of the stndard 90 degrees of most other brands of lenses. The lens comes complete with with end caps, a padded soft side storage case, and even a lens hood, specialy designed to eliminate vigneting- at no extra charge. Although normaly dedicated to Nikor lenses, after inspecting and using this lens I found it to be equal in quality and better designed (in my opnion) in some areas than the Nikor 80-200 F2.8 silent wave lens. It is also smaller and lighter than the Nikor lens, a big plus in all day use, in or out of the jungle. On top of everything else I was able to purchase the Sigma lens for...less than the Nikor lens. A great lens at a great price.

This is one wide lens - but once I screwed it onto my F707 with one of the supplied adaptor rings and put the camera into macro mode, it was like rediscovering the camera.
The quality of the glass lens makes it a great companion for the Carl Zeiss fitted to the F707 and together they make for some very good shots with minimal distortion.
The gripes? Well it's huge, making the camera cumbersome and it also blocks off the built in flash. I guess you can't have everything...
I do shots of hotel bedrooms/bathrooms for my clients sometimes and in small rooms, I just can't get myself far enough into the corner to get the shot to show everything I want using the normal lens. This is where this lens really shines.

Although it makes the already big Mavica CD500 bigger, it's well worth the added bulk by allowing you to take more of the landscape and making your rooms look bigger. The bad part is that it takes some time to screw on and change the setting to ON on "Conversion Lens". You will also need an external flash to use it in dark places because the lens blocks the flash and limits the F aperture to about 4 (less light reaches the sensors). Remember to buy the VAD-S70 ring adaptor (52mm). If you have a CD-500, I strongly recommend it, it's easy to use and the camera will reward you with even better photos.

No matter what you're thinking this piece of glass is BIG and heavy. But that's ok because it's a fantastic lens. You may need to buy an additional Adapter Ring for your camera (VAD-S70) to use it. The Adapter Ring is around $$$ on average.

What's there to say really about this great lens? It hardly affects the stop on the camera, and althogh there is a touch of warping (fisheye) at the edges of the frame it's not enough to notice unless you're looking for it.

When you get the lens it comes with a nice pouch to keep it in, and lens caps naturally, The taking end cap has a lanyard to tie onto.

If you need a wide-angle lens and this one fits your camera (if you need the adapter you'll end up with two more adapter rings as the lens or the adapter ring comes with adapter rings, I can't recall where they came from) you can't go wrong with it. Just keep in mind that it's BIG and Heavy but wonderful.

I love working with computers (mine or other people's). But the eyestrain gets to me after awhile. I also get a funny feeling in my head if I've been working on one for several hours. My current business involves making "house calls" to help other people learn to do specific tasks with their computers. I have a nice monitor at home, which helps the eyestrain and funny head feeling. But some of my clients have monitors that drive me nuts. One of my clients, however, purchased this monitor filter. What a blessing! The image on the screen is sharper. My eyes are less strained. And I can work longer before needing to give my eyes and head a break. My only complaint is that when people touch the filter to point to something on the screen (which happens frequently in this client's office), a very obvious finger print is left. The fingerprints, however, are easy to clean with a slightly damp paper towel. I have ordered a similar filter to fit my 15 inch monitor at home.

I'm using Sony GDM-F400 monitor, and although it is top of the line 19" monitor, I still get eye strain after working for 8 hours in my office. This filter significantly reduced this problem and now neither my eyes, nor my head get a funny feeling after I've been working on a computer for a while. I will highly recommend this filter to anyone.

On the side note, if you ever thinking about purchasing an anti- filter, make sure it is anti-radiation and not only anti-glare (anti radiation/anti-glare is the best of both worlds). That's what gives relief to your eyes and saves your health in the long run.

This is an excellent buy. Quiet and shuts off when desired humidity reached. Recommend highly.

The only negative is that the installation instructions are a little cryptic and the fan makes some noise at highest speed.

At low speed, it's silent. Appearance is great and performance is great too (so far!).

The Black and Decker heater is a pretty good heater at a value price. It's got several different settings depending on the size of the room you want to heat and puts out a lot of heat in a limited area. One nice feature is the temperature indicator. It's also got a Frost Watch setting which will automatically turn the heater on if the temperature drops below 40 degrees. It also has very nice safety features. Including a switch under the heater that is pressed when the heater is sitting upright. If it should tip over, the switch is deactivated and the heater automatically shuts off.
It's a very nice little heater.

I own two heaters: a Vornado and the Black and Decker. Both of these heaters are wonderful and I would recommend either equally. First, the safety features on both are outstanding. Neither are similar to the heaters we grew up with which were made of metal and glowed like charcoal. These both produce very good heat, quickly, and are nice to have if you do not wish to heat your entire home. The Black and Decker does have many safety features which is nice. Both have their pluses and I truly can't think of minuses for either. Order both!

This Canon-made plastic gadget obviously lets the photographer mount filters and accessory lenses to some A series cameras. The plastic is thin and flimsy feeling. Other suppliers make the same gizmo for the same models out of metal for about the same price. It would be nice to see Amazon carrying them, but I got mine at a local photo shop.

I bought a Canon Powershot A70. They say your best camera is the one you use most, and man I use it. I'm a high schooler, so I dont have much money, but with the A70, I can attach this adapter (LA-DC52C) to my camera, and I can have more photographic freedom with lenses, for alot less money. YOU HAVE TO HAVE THIS ADAPTER FIRST. Then any lense which fits (most), can be used... GOOD IDEA CANON!!!!

Nice to only have to carry around one lens, but it is a rather heavy lens. Works great, though. To zoom with the lens, it just slides in and out, you don't rotate it like you normally would operate an SLR lens (at least any I've seen). Kind of weird to get used to sliding the whole lens instead of turning it. I much prefer the turning method for zooming.

I decided to give the 28mm - 300mm Series 1 Zoom a try since I also own a 25 year old Vivitar Series 1 90mm Macro lens for my old Minolta SRT-101. I have owned mostly Minolta branded (Rokkor) lenses so for me to purchase a non-Minolta lens, it had to be outstanding. You won't be disappointed. It is a sharp, well-built lens and gives me an all-around lens for virtually all situations. I agree with the other reviewer that this is not a heavy lens. Maybe I am old-fashioned but the push-pull zooming works just fine. I will still hang on to my Minolta 28mm-80mm Zoom that I got with the STsi but more as a back up. Vivitar does warn the user to not attach the included lens shade if you are using the camera's built-in flash in the wider angles as the lens shade may cast a shadow on your picture. I have used my built-in flash with this lens many times mostly for fill-in lighting with no problems. You have to remember to unlock the lens lock button when you turn your camera on but it really has not been a nuisance for me at all.

Run- don't walk to buy this lens if you are considering it. I found to work excellently and take razor sharp pictures. No offense to the reviewer above, but I found it to be a surprisingly light lense. Don't let weight keep you from buying it. 28-300 is worth a TON on convience. It sometimes is slow taking the picture working with AF with my Minolta 7xi, but that could just be my camera. Also I have a tad of trouble getting the lens cap on all the way (with a UV filter on). But these are minor and I HIGHLY recommend this lens.

I just purchased all three Vornado air filters: the AQS15, AQS25, and the AQS35. All have the same basic design, and the higher the model number, the larger the size. The AQS25 and 35 deserve five stars: good design, and quiet operation. The AQS15, however, has one major problem. It is loud. On its lowest setting (of the three speeds it has), it is as loud as either of its bigger siblings on their highest settings! The AQS15 is so loud that I personally can't stand to be in the same room with it. An air filter should be seen and not heard. I don't know why it is so loud, possibly because of its small size and the huge volume of air that it moves. I own other Vornado products, such as their heater, fans, and humidifier. This is the first time Vornado has disappointed me.

Bottom line: if you want a *quiet*, high quality HEPA air filter, get the AQS25 or 35. The AQS25 is the best buy for the money. On the other hand, if you don't mind having a filter that sounds like an old fashioned 9-horsepower box fan, then get the AQS15. Aside from the Vornado design, the only thing this filter has going for it is its small size.

Works great, but also generates enough white noise to drown out street noise and neighbors. If you live in a city, and have trouble sleeping; try using this air filter.

It is a loud machine but it's great for me because I live on a noisy street and it blocks out all the other sounds so I can sleep at night! It works great too, and it's small in size and not heavy, so when I have people over that smoke I move it to the living room or wherever we are and it completely eliminates the smell.